Suharto (June 8, 1921 - January 27, 2008) was an anti-communist Indonesianmilitary and political leader. He started as a military officer in the Indonesian National Revolution. He came to power following a bloodless coup in 1967, and served as the second President of Indonesia from 1967-1998 during which time he was involved in a number of massacres aimed at eliminating communists in Indonesia[1]. He was forced to resign his presidency in 1998 after mass demonstrations due to his authoritarian and corrupt administration. He passed away on January 27th, 2008.

Suharto was a close ally of the United States during the Cold War. As a result, he became a bête noire of the far left. In the mass anti-communist killings of 1965, it is still not clear exactly what role the army played nor indeed precisely how much control Suharto, still struggling with Sukarno, had. Although Indonesia was never a democracy under Suharto, there was a wide degree of permissible discussion, by Southeast Asian standards a fairly liberal press, and many of the procedures of social consultation that characterise a democracy. Under his rule, millions of people were freed from poverty, Indonesia became self-sufficient in rice, and a sizeable manufacturing economy grew up.[2]

Atrocities in East Timor

Suharto ordered an invasion of the small island of East Timor to overthrow the murderous communist front group FRETELIN. A Truth Commission found that 17,600-19,600 Timorese were violently killed and about 100,000 died from hunger and illness. The deaths were spread out evenly over the entire 25-year occupation. Indonesian forces were responsible for more than two-thirds of the killings. The excess deaths have not been attributed definitively to either side.[3] Radical leftists attempted to conflate the slaughter with the Cambodian Holocaust, in which the communists massacred or starved to death 2.2 million people in four years of peacetime--27% of Cambodia's 1975 population of 8.1 million. There is no comparison between the two crimes. The closest comparison would probably be the brief period of communist rule in East Timor.